European Cloud
Data Sovereignty
impossible cloud data privacy controls
Strengthen Your Impossible Cloud Data Privacy Controls for 2025 and Beyond
As of September 2025, new EU regulations fundamentally change data governance, making robust data privacy controls a board-level concern. For UK and EU businesses, relying on non-sovereign clouds introduces risks of non-compliance and data exposure under foreign laws.
Key Takeawys
True data sovereignty requires a European cloud provider to legally shield your data from foreign laws like the US CLOUD Act, ensuring compliance with GDPR.
The EU Data Act, effective September 2025, and the NIS-2 Directive mandate seamless provider switching and assign cybersecurity accountability directly to senior management.
A predictable cost model with zero egress or API fees is essential for breaking vendor lock-in and achieving financial transparency in your cloud strategy.
The digital landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, with 84% of European organizations now prioritizing sovereign cloud solutions. New regulations like the EU Data Act and NIS-2 Directive are no longer distant concepts; they are immediate strategic imperatives. This article outlines a clear path to fortifying your data privacy controls, ensuring compliance, and achieving cost predictability. We will explore how a sovereign-by-design approach, built on EU-only infrastructure, directly counters the risks posed by non-EU laws and eliminates the vendor lock-in caused by unpredictable fees.
Secure Data Sovereignty in a New Regulatory Era
The push for digital sovereignty is a strategic response to a market where 97% of cloud services are dominated by non-EU providers. True sovereignty means your data is governed exclusively by EU law, a principle challenged by the US CLOUD Act of 2018. This act grants US authorities extraterritorial access to data held by US-based companies, even if it resides in a European data center. For any business using such providers, this creates an immediate conflict with GDPR. A European provider like Impossible Cloud ensures immunity from these foreign laws, guaranteeing your data remains under EU jurisdiction. This legal certainty is the foundation of modern data privacy.
Achieve Compliance with the EU Data Act and NIS-2
From September 12, 2025, the EU Data Act will enforce new rules to prevent vendor lock-in and empower customers. The act mandates that providers must facilitate switching within 30 days and will completely ban exit fees by January 2027. Simultaneously, the NIS-2 Directive requires organizations to implement stringent cybersecurity measures, with non-compliance fines reaching up to 10% of global turnover. NIS-2 assigns cybersecurity accountability directly to senior management, making it a top-level priority. Impossible Cloud’s architecture is built to meet these standards, offering verifiable compliance by design and simplifying your regulatory obligations.
Implement Geofencing for Granular Data Control
Effective data privacy requires precise control over where data resides and moves, a capability known as geofencing. This technology creates virtual boundaries that prevent data from leaving a predefined geographic region, ensuring compliance with data residency rules under GDPR. For industries like financial services, country-level geofencing is a non-negotiable control for managing sensitive workloads. It provides an automated layer of security, with real-time alerts preventing unauthorized data movement. Impossible Cloud offers this control at the platform level, allowing you to enforce strict EU data residency policies with just a few clicks. This capability is essential for maintaining control in a multi-cloud world.
Eliminate Hidden Costs and Vendor Lock-In
Unpredictable costs are a major barrier to cloud efficiency, with nearly 50% of storage expenses often coming from hidden egress fees and API call charges. Research shows 56% of IT leaders find these fees excessive, as they create a powerful vendor lock-in effect. Impossible Cloud’s pricing model is predictable by design, with zero egress fees, no API call costs, and no minimum storage durations. This transparency allows for precise budgeting and removes the financial penalties associated with accessing or migrating your own data. This model directly supports the EU Data Act's goal of fostering a fair, competitive market. A predictable economic model is the first step toward a sustainable cloud strategy.
Fortify Defenses with Immutable Ransomware Protection
Ransomware attacks surged by 84% in early 2025, and attackers are increasingly sophisticated, targeting backups in 96% of incidents. The most effective defense is immutable storage with Object Lock. This feature makes your backup data unchangeable and undeletable for a set period, creating a secure copy that ransomware cannot encrypt. While 94% of IT leaders agree immutable backups are essential, only 59% of organizations have deployed them. Impossible Cloud provides this protection out-of-the-box, ensuring you can restore operations within minutes, not days. This resilience transforms your backup repository into a strategic asset for business continuity.
Leverage an Enterprise-Ready, S3-Compatible Architecture
True enterprise readiness goes beyond basic storage, requiring full S3-API compatibility to protect your existing investments in tools and scripts. Impossible Cloud ensures your applications keep working without code rewrites, supporting advanced features like versioning and lifecycle management. Our “Always-Hot” architecture eliminates the complexity and delays of tiered storage, making 100% of your data immediately accessible. This model avoids the fragile tiering policies that often lead to restore failures and hidden fees. This architectural choice simplifies operations and strengthens your recovery posture. For partners and MSPs, this simplicity translates directly into value.
Empower MSPs with a Partner-Ready Platform
Take Practical Steps Toward Sovereign Cloud Adoption
Migrating to a sovereign cloud platform is a straightforward process that enhances your data privacy controls immediately. A successful transition involves a few key steps:
Assess Your Data Landscape: Identify all data subject to GDPR and other EU regulations to define the scope of your migration.
Configure Your Endpoints: Update your existing S3-compatible backup tools and applications to point to the Impossible Cloud endpoint.
Replicate Policies: Recreate your existing bucket policies, IAM roles, and lifecycle rules in the Impossible Cloud console.
Initiate a Test Migration: Move a non-critical dataset to validate the workflow and measure performance.
Perform a Test Restore: Always validate the integrity of your migrated data by performing a full restore test before cutting over.
This methodical approach minimizes risk and ensures a seamless transition to a more secure and compliant storage environment.
Start Building Your Sovereign Data Future Today
Adopting a sovereign cloud strategy is no longer just a compliance exercise; it is a competitive advantage that builds trust and ensures long-term resilience. By choosing a European provider, you align your infrastructure with the world’s strongest data privacy regulations and future-proof your business against geopolitical shifts. With a platform that is predictable, secure, and sovereign by design, you can focus on innovation instead of navigating regulatory complexity. The tools to take control of your data are available now. Talk to an expert to see how Impossible Cloud can strengthen your data privacy controls in under 24 hours.
More Links
Wikipedia provides a comprehensive overview of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The German Data Protection Conference (DSK) offers a PDF document providing guidance or an opinion on cloud-related data protection issues.
FAQ
How does Impossible Cloud ensure my data stays within the EU?
Impossible Cloud operates exclusively in certified European data centers and is a European company. This combination of legal and physical infrastructure guarantees your data is governed solely by EU laws like GDPR. We also offer country-level geofencing to restrict data to specific EU regions for even stricter compliance.
What makes the pricing model 'predictable'?
Our pricing is based on a simple, transparent rate for storage used. We have no egress fees for data retrieval, no charges for API calls (reads/writes), and no minimum storage duration fees. This eliminates the variable, hidden costs that make budgeting difficult with other providers, ensuring your bill is predictable every month.
Can I use my existing backup software with Impossible Cloud?
Yes. Impossible Cloud offers full S3-API compatibility, meaning it works out-of-the-box with leading backup and recovery software like Veeam, Rubrik, and others, as well as any tools, scripts, or applications that use the S3 protocol. No code changes are required.
What is 'Always-Hot' storage?
'Always-Hot' storage means all your data is immediately accessible at all times, with no delays or extra fees for retrieval. Unlike complex tiered systems (hot, cool, archive), you don't need to manage lifecycle policies or wait for data to be restored from a slower tier, which simplifies operations and speeds up recovery.
How do you help MSPs and channel partners?
We provide a partner-ready platform with a multi-tenant console, full automation via API/CLI, and a predictable pricing model that protects margins for BaaS and DRaaS offerings. Our growing distribution network, including partners like api and Northamber plc, ensures local support and fast onboarding for resellers.
How does Object Lock protect against ransomware?
Object Lock (immutable storage) allows you to set a retention policy on your backups, making them undeletable and unchangeable for that duration. If a ransomware attack encrypts your primary systems, your immutable backup copy remains untouched and secure, allowing you to restore a clean version of your data quickly and avoid paying a ransom.
